2009 MLB season in review: Cleveland Indians
For whatever reason the Cleveland Indians cannot seem to get it right. Over the last few years they have had a lot of talent and yet win/loss success seems to elude them. Even when they do win, they got to the post season and exit early. They play in the worst division in baseball and yet they cannot get it done. Over the last two years they have traded away a lot of their weapons looking to get a bunch of prospects in return, they are trying to change up their mix. In the mean time, their on the field product got their manager and coaching staff fired.
Their final record was 65-97, and they finished tied for last place in their division. Tied with the lowly Royals, and 21.5 games behind the Minnesota Twins who won the AL Central. However the Indians may be the very worst team in a soft division. They were never in first place, and they never played, a 2009 game were their record was better than .500. They ended up 32 games under .500 and clearly have a lot of work to do.
This is a team that lost, and lost often in 2009. They were able to win five games in a row in the summer, but suffered an 11 game losing streak in late September. While they did score 773 runs, they gave up 865. Their team batting average was .264m and their team ERA was 5.07. In fact they had only one pitcher earn double digit wins.
In all 1,766,242 fans came to Jacobs Field to see the Indians play. For their 79 home games they averaged 22,537 fans, good enough for 26th among MLB teams. While many will blame the soft economy for the fact that they could only sell 51.5% of their 2009 ticket inventory, I really wonder would you spend top dollar to see this team play?
